This argument has come up a lot, what are your opinions about Kataang and Zutara? Which pairing is more likely? Do you think they're age differences really matter? Everyone's invited! Keep it respectful, though.

Alright, let's face the haesh reality, Zutara is never going to happen, it didn't happen, the show is over, the whole concept is now fodder for fanfiction

or is it?

My question to all of you is this.

What would allow you to recognize a Zutara-like relationhip without it involving Zuko or Katara? If you were to read a book, play a video game, watch a T.V. show or a movie, and there was a relationship involving two very polorized individuals, what.... landmarks.... or minor details would allow you to enjoy their story as much as you enjoy the 'hypothetical' story of Zuko and Katara?

This is a serious question and I hope to get a few serious answeres.

Kataangers are free to add their opinions, but hare me now when I say that bashing or flaming will NOT be tollerated.

Originally, I was a Kataang shipper. When Zuko joined the crew, I thought "By god, Zutara makes sense!" and switched to the other side. Kataang was just too canon. Zuko and Katara are a balanced couple, and they truly understand each other. Mai and Zuko just looks like two characters being paired up, because they look emo. ¬.¬

Gaaaaa. This has been gone over before, but for some reason I'm involving myself. Consider this possibility: No ships at all--except Sokka/Suki and maybe Maiko. This way, we don't have a boatload of people interpreting every interaction between, say, Katara and Aang as whether they're compatible or not. There can be a good tale without much romance, or almost total lack thereof--see Lord of the Rings--the books, not the movies

I agree with militaryhistory (hahaha, for once, right?). Romance was never the forefront of the series, evident in the lack of build up between all except Katara and Aang. To claim that one character would be better off with someone else places an emphasis on a secondary back story. That is fine in fandom, but let's just trust the creators to know who goes well with who, eh?

Hold it...wait...RueBroadway actually agreed with me? Give me a moment--I need to go outside to make sure the pigs aren't flying. I'm also going to (better go outside and make sure the trees ain't walkin') agree with RueBroadway, and say that we should trust the creators of the show. After all, it's their tale. If you think different--that's what fanfic's for.

Sigh.... Alright let me try this again, becuase not a single one of you even came close to answereing my question.

Let's take the character of Luke Skywalker. Dashing, brave, flies around in space-ships and shoots aliens with rayguns. This character stems from the same character arcitype as Buck-rodgers, Flash-Gordon and Star-Buck.

Do you see where I'm getting at? Luke Skywalker was developed so that fans of the original sitcoms who's leading characters he was modled after, would have something familier to gravite t.

So how is any of this relavent?

Well, a few years back (12 to be exact) I wrote a story. The epic kind. and eventually it turned into a literary monster, with plots and subplot sprouting up like a bad case of..... well you get the idea.

Anyway, I had to put the darn thing down for a while.... a long while. It wasn't until I started watching the Avatar series did my desire to write again took hold. I was a late avatar fan, so I pretty much bypassed all the fandom drama that had sprouted up from it.

I don't know when the story of Zuko and Katara made itself known to me, but I never became a shipper, seing as how I pretty much knew how the whole relationship thing would pan out. But despite that, I found myself enjoying much of the more well-written fanfiction focussing on the whole zutara plotline.

So how does thos relate to my own story? Well it was around the time of that convention when Bryan and Mike publicly scorned all zutarians with a very tasteles flash animation. If that wasn't enough, they actually went as far call zutarians stupid on a DVD commentery for Sozin's Comet. I may not by a Zutarian but I did sympathise with them.

So my thinking is this

What if I were to incorperate a few literary landmarks from both Zuko and Katara into my own story, so that Zutara fans could be able to spot it and enjoy it for the same reasons they enjoy the original pairing?

I honestly don't know how else to put this.

I'll give you an example

When I think of Zutara I think A young warrior fallen from grace, twisted by his own self-loathing yet retains that tiny shred of goodness that prevents him from becoming a monster like his former masters.

A young warrior-girl, brave and rash, and quick to jump to the first conclusion that presents itself. Kind and gentel, a healer, yet deadly when crossed or when one threatans those she cares for. All around a good person yet plaged by a deep-seeded rage that's always on the verge of erupting within her.

The relation itself is a chaos passion and emotion, and strang mixture of love and hate, trust and betreyal, remorse and forgivness. It's a relationship that literally went through hell.

(once again all this is purely base on what fanfiction's you've read.)

and yes, you got the whole interacial thing going.... come on don't look at me like that you knew it was on everyone's mind!

There. I just described what I recognize from the Zutara relationship.

Okay, I think I get what your saying, and it goes a lot deeper than I thought. You're asking if I would enjoy the 'story' of Zutara, even without the characters? If my interpretation is right, than my answer is no.

Lol, forgive me, but I have a hard time liking the "relation itself is a chaos passion and emotion, and strange mixture of love and hate, trust and betrayal, remorse and forgiveness. It's a relationship that literally went through hell" without Katara and Zuko. I truley believe in balance in a relationship, and the above are opposites, but it isn't balance. It's one big cliched ball of explosive emotion with nothing to soothe it.

It isn't realistic, and maybe that is the root of my dislike of it. Becuase I've seen real people in that big explosive ball, my mind can't wrap around the thought of it actually working.

But even more than that, it's just not my cup of tea :o)

Well it was around the time of that convention when Bryan and Mike publicly scorned all zutarians with a very tasteless flash animation. If that wasn't enough, they actually went as far call zutarians stupid on a DVD commentary for Sozin's Comet. I may not by a Zutarian but I did sympathise with them.

Really, I don't blame Bryke. The Zutarian masses have made extraordinarily negative and disrespectful claims about them personally. Petitions demanding Zutarian rewrites (claiming that the creators ruined the show) are not a way to get into someone's good graces. Bryke talked about the shippings before the convention and their comments went ignored, yet the questions kept coming. I think this was an effective way of stating their opinions. Any really, Zutara wasn't the only shipping to be made fun of...it was just the longest and most distributed.

I mean, it's a fan made pairing. They should be happy they got any attention at all. Lol, do you think my beloved Jetko got a flash animation? But then again, we weren't trying to claim it canon ;o)

Sigh.... Alright let me try this again, becuase not a single one of you even came close to answereing my question.

Let's take the character of Luke Skywalker. Dashing, brave, flies around in space-ships and shoots aliens with rayguns. This character stems from the same character arcitype as Buck-rodgers, Flash-Gordon and Star-Buck.

Do you see where I'm getting at? Luke Skywalker was developed so that fans of the original sitcoms who's leading characters he was modled after, would have something familier to gravite t.

So how is any of this relavent?

Well, a few years back (12 to be exact) I wrote a story. The epic kind. and eventually it turned into a literary monster, with plots and subplot sprouting up like a bad case of..... well you get the idea.

Anyway, I had to put the darn thing down for a while.... a long while. It wasn't until I started watching the Avatar series did my desire to write again took hold. I was a late avatar fan, so I pretty much bypassed all the fandom drama that had sprouted up from it.

I don't know when the story of Zuko and Katara made itself known to me, but I never became a shipper, seing as how I pretty much knew how the whole relationship thing would pan out. But despite that, I found myself enjoying much of the more well-written fanfiction focussing on the whole zutara plotline.

So how does thos relate to my own story? Well it was around the time of that convention when Bryan and Mike publicly scorned all zutarians with a very tasteles flash animation. If that wasn't enough, they actually went as far call zutarians stupid on a DVD commentery for Sozin's Comet. I may not by a Zutarian but I did sympathise with them.

So my thinking is this

What if I were to incorperate a few literary landmarks from both Zuko and Katara into my own story, so that Zutara fans could be able to spot it and enjoy it for the same reasons they enjoy the original pairing?

I honestly don't know how else to put this.

I'll give you an example

When I think of Zutara I think A young warrior fallen from grace, twisted by his own self-loathing yet retains that tiny shred of goodness that prevents him from becoming a monster like his former masters.

A young warrior-girl, brave and rash, and quick to jump to the first conclusion that presents itself. Kind and gentel, a healer, yet deadly when crossed or when one threatans those she cares for. All around a good person yet plaged by a deep-seeded rage that's always on the verge of erupting within her.

The relation itself is a chaos passion and emotion, and strang mixture of love and hate, trust and betreyal, remorse and forgivness. It's a relationship that literally went through hell.

(once again all this is purely base on what fanfiction's you've read.)

and yes, you got the whole interacial thing going.... come on don't look at me like that you knew it was on everyone's mind!

There. I just described what I recognize from the Zutara relationship.

All of this I agree with.

except I was a kataanger at first

I switched during the firebending masters

Really, I don't blame Bryke. The Zutarian masses have made extraordinarily negative and disrespectful claims about them personally. Petitions demanding Zutarian rewrites (claiming that the creators ruined the show) are not a way to get into someone's good graces. Bryke talked about the shippings before the convention and their comments went ignored, yet the questions kept coming. I think this was an effective way of stating their opinions. Any really, Zutara wasn't the only shipping to be made fun of...it was just the longest and most distributed.

I'm not saying zutara is the best ship. I just think PURELY MY OPINION, NOT WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN, that the show could have been a lot better if it left off without the kataang kiss. It was out of place. I could have been spared the Maiko kiss too. If it was my show I would have ended it without a maiko kiss. aang would have flown off on the balcony into the sunset. katara would have been following him. Zuko would have been watching from behind.

Although to keep it really neutral everybody could have died when Jet did. That way even Jetara could have had a chance.

What people don't seem to understand is that the creators made the show. It was theres. The characters were theres. They belong to them. Thats like you parents telling you that you belong with a certain person. Even though I like Zutara and think it should have happened, Kataang did. They had that ending planed out from the start. Or so they say.

One thing I will point out is that they are liars. They laugh at zutarians but they themselves created the ship. If you have watched the chibi episodes and read the magazine everything screamed zutara. Its not a coincidence that there are thousands more zutarians than kataangers. Unless we all are morons. Take it from me. I don't see anything that just doesn;t exist. They put in sublimnal zutara messages in a lot of places.

Lol, forgive me, but I have a hard time liking the "relation itself is a chaos passion and emotion, and strange mixture of love and hate, trust and betrayal, remorse and forgiveness. It's a relationship that literally went through hell" without Katara and Zuko. I truley believe in balance in a relationship, and the above are opposites, but it isn't balance. It's one big cliched ball of explosive emotion with nothing to soothe it.

It isn't realistic, and maybe that is the root of my dislike of it. Becuase I've seen real people in that big explosive ball, my mind can't wrap around the thought of it actually working.

my parents have this type of relationship and they've been together for 17 years.

I mean, it's a fan made pairing. They should be happy they got any attention at all. Lol, do you think my beloved Jetko got a flash animation? But then again, we weren't trying to claim it canon ;o)

Zutara had signs, Jetko is a yaoi which never happens on nickolodean lmfao

Subliminal implies intention...and I don't believe there was any. I haven't seen most of the Nick Magazines, but I know the chibi series were not meant to be taken seriously (lol, because they are chibi).

my parents have this type of relationship and they've been together for 17 years.

Yeah, mine did too. They made it to 20 years. But I've got to say that both are extremely happier separate than together and I got a great step mother out of the deal :o) Again, this is probably why I personally don't find the 'Zutara' story appealing.

Zutara had signs, Jetko is a yaoi which never happens on nickolodean lmfao

Oh, if only, right? My point is that both are fan made. If you look closely enough, you can find 'hints' for everything. But I think Zutara was obviously fans putting one and one together and saying, "y'know, I think that might work" without substantial positive interaction between the two. I mean, they didn't starting being receptive to each other until three eps before the finale. This is why I say Zutara is purely fandom.

I haven't a clue what chibi is, and I'm not going to speak as to the parents deal (though mine've been married since the '70s. Very grateful for that). But as to the "hints"--in all honesty, I think most of those are found primarily by people who look way too hard and see in every relationship romantic potential, no matter how unlikely it may be--primary example, yaoi. It's a kids show! Let's assume all characters are straight unless either A. specifically mentioned otherwise, or B. not specifically mentioned, but horrifyingly obvious.

Summer Frost, Zutara is always fanon. Those 17000+ people have either deluded themselves to the truth, are poor, pathetic girls who can't get a date and fantasize about the 'bad boy' getting with the 'main girl' since they view it as 'sexy'. Of those 17,000, about half knew it wasn't going to happen (the male half) and moved on by now, a couple thousand or so fangirls have decided to move on with their lives, until finally we have the h***, like you and the other Zutarans here, that refuse to listen to logic and keep pushing your ship, even though its dead and buried.

In all honesty, given that, I'll admit, I ended up seeing the finale first (Yes, yes, I know, shame on me), the only romances that I've seen, rewatching the show on DVD whenever I happen to be in the downstairs with my sister, are thus: Aang/Katara, Sokka/Suk(k)i, and Zuko/Mai (Although I happen to think that Katara/Haru would be a hilarious occurence). There really wasn't much of anything else (and anything that was different was swiftly canceled out by something else).

oh my god. Please excuse me while I go shoot myself in the f*@%&ing head. do you realize that not a single one of you has answered my question? And Sonkensin or whatever the hell you call yourself do not turn this ntil a goddamn bash-fest.

Yes, I would read Zutara had the characters been different. I also ship Jacob/Bella, though lately have been more for Jake/Leah. I like ships like that. I love the storyline for Zutara especially! I think that was what you asked for, anyways. Sorry if I answered wrong...

And Son Kenshin, that was MORE than disrespectful. After I read that incredibly Zutara-bashing post, my mouth dropped (I was already pissed at one of my teachers for giving me a MORE THAN LAME reason for a detention.) and thought: "That guy did NOT just go there," Not once have I said anything disrespectful about Kataang and it's fans, and most of the Zutarians on here are pretty good about that too. So just because we AREN'T the "crazy Zutarians" that you argue with on LiveJournal or whatever doesn't make it right to associate US with those people, OK?!?! If that many people have been pro-Zutara, that big number has got to be something to you, or you just have s*** for a brain. So what if we're all "crazy"? Why would you give a crap anyways?

I'm not old enough to vote yet (but I will in the next election!!) and my parents voted for Kerry. And then Obama. McCain would've had a better chance if he hadn't chosen such a s h i t t y vice pres.

(I know we're supposed to stay on topic, but I had to add my two-cents to that, lol)

Okay, LadyPadfoot, get off conservatives' cases, willya? Saying we're all stupid or were merely Kerry haters is like me saying everyone who voted for Barack Obama either wants money for nothing or hates white people.

Although, look, historically, presidential second terms are worse than their first terms. Here's what Bush got right: Afghanistan, the surge in Iraq (yes, it is working, you can tell by the way CBS doesn't talk about the war anymore), and his Supreme Court appointments (although, I will give y'all, he even tried to mess that up).

And yes, I do think McCain would've been better than Barack Obama (shoulda picked Mitt Romney or Joe Lieberman for VP).

But enough of politics. Son Kenshin: Chill. Seriously.

As to a Zutara storyline, in all honesty, I don't read for the romance (I would hope not, I'm a guy), but such a romance I maybe would recognize, and perhaps appreciate--get the redemption theme going.

I've got to point out that Lady P didn't say that all conservatives were stupid, she said that McCain made a mistake in picking Palin (something you both agree on). I agree, if McCain had picked Romney, the election wouldn't have been such an electoral sweep.

but such a romance I maybe would recognize, and perhaps appreciate--get the redemption theme going.

LMAO, I guess that's as manly a response as one can get about romance. I could so hear my uncle saying that with his arms crossed and avoiding all eye contact. Hilarious...

Sorry about that, Lady P, I confused you with Summer's Frost, who is actually the one I want off our cases. Seriously. We do have brains--and use them.

Although, I think if the economic crisis had occurred after the election, McCain might well have won--although perhaps losing was the best thing for McCain personally, as his reputation will not be tarnished by his "failure to deal with the economic crisis effectively" whereas, I think, in the history textbooks our children will read, Obama will likely be treated as a hero-saint, much like FDR, unless he pulls a Bill Clinton or Warren Harding, both of which I doubt will happen.

A little thing on romance--I don'y mind when it's a subplot, but if it becomes the whole point of something, for me at least, it's time to leave--LOTR--good amount of romance there.

Although, I think if the economic crisis had occurred after the election, McCain might well have won--although perhaps losing was the best thing for McCain personally, as his reputation will not be tarnished by his "failure to deal with the economic crisis effectively" whereas, I think, in the history textbooks our children will read, Obama will likely be treated as a hero-saint, much like FDR, unless he pulls a Bill Clinton or Warren Harding, both of which I doubt will happen.

I actually agree with this...sort of. I think the election would have been closer, but I think Obama would have ultimately won. Even without the economy on his side, his message was solid from the beginning, he had one of the most successful 'get out and vote' project, and he didn't pick Palin. The worse thing McCain did for his run was pick the Alaskan governor. Not because she was a woman, but because she was practically political invalid. They didn't know what to do with her when they had her, so they hid her from the media, leaving the media to come up with stories on their own. We already know that the media has a liberal lean, so why in God's name would you let them to their own devices. And then comes the Couric interview...wow...

Palin was good for the base conservatives, but the republicans needed more than the base to win. He really needed the women democrats who were pissed that Clinton didn't win the primaries, but Palin pushed them away in droves with her political stance on womens reproductive rights and her extreme hokey mom winking machine.

Palin was right though about one thing; in her interview with Greta she pointed out that there was this anti-incumbency undertone this election year. So who knows if any Republican could have really won.